In the wake of the recent decision not to list the greater sage grouse to the Endangered Species list, KUMD's longtime "audio columnist" Laura Erickson offers her take on ways commercial interests are doing an end run around the Act.

There are dozens of environmental organizations in the Twin Ports and almost all of them expand their reach and their resources by partnering with one another on different projects.

But recently, the St. Louis River Alliance sat down for a meeting and instead of the regular troop of khaki- and jean-clad biologists and environmentalists, they were inundated with architects, landscapers and urban planners courtesy of Design Duluth.

Diane Desotelle of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency says it's a pretty good time to be a fish in the St. Louis River.

But it's going to get better.

Through a network of unique partnerships and collaboration, the clean materials the US Army Corps of Engineers is dredging from ship channels in the harbor will be repurposed in the river to create better habitat for fish, including muskie, northern pike and walleye.

Of the estimated 20 to 30 million bison that once roamed the great plains, only 500,000 are left.

And less than 5% of those are pure wild bison, free of cattle genetics due to efforts at crossbreeding in the past.

But eleven of those bison with no evidence of cattle genetics have been reintroduced to Mineopa State Park in southwestern Minnesota, and that has a lot of people pretty excited about the prospect of new partnerships ... and new herds throughout the state.

You may applaud the folks you see out cleaning up the beach this coming Saturday morning, but they're doing more than picking up garbage.

The Alliance for the Great Lakes Adopt-a-Beach cleanups are also an opportunity to collect data about what's littering our beaches and why. Volunteers will determining how much trash is on the beach, what it's made up of, where it was found and how much it all weighs, and that information could help improve the health of all the Great Lakes.